‘History is happening’: Black Built Pitt organizers reflect on project

When Luana Reis, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, discovered the Black Built Pitt project, she was intrigued.

“It was about creating this space at the University to celebrate the lives and experiences of Black people,” Reis said. “And also learning more about the history of Black students and faculty in the University. What are the stories and history behind all those buildings we usually walk by?”

The Black Built Pitt digital archive is the fourth installment of Pitt’s “Black Lives in Focus” initiative. According to Bria Walker, the facilitator of the project, the initiative intended to amplify and celebrate Black voices in the local Pittsburgh community after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

Reis said the archive is filled with important information for Pitt students and faculty. 

“You can learn about the things that you might be able to accomplish when you organize and fight for your rights,” Reis said.

This archive is centered on three areas of focus — the computer center takeover of 1969, Kuntu Repertory Theatre and Afrolatinidad Studies Initiative.

According to information on the digital archive, students occupied the center in 1969 to demand better conditions for Black students and faculty. After an agreement between the Black Action Society and then-Chancellor Wesley Posvar, students left the center at 3 a.m. on Jan. 16.

Reis specifically worked on compiling information from the takeover.

“It was fascinating to me to think that in the 1960s, these students were organizing to have a better space for Black students at the University,” Reis said.

Walker, an assistant professor in the Department of Theater Arts, said she first found out about the computer center takeover from Kathy Humphrey, a former senior vice chancellor at Pitt. 

“When Dr. Humphrey was here, I was meeting with her, and she started telling me about the computer center takeover, and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I never knew about this,’” Walker said. “And I was surprised about how many people did not know about it, and how influential it was to Pitt’s history.”

Reis said links are included in the archive to the 1968-69 As-Salaam-Alaikum BAS publication, the Black Paper for Black Studies by Curtiss Porter and Jack Daniel, and various stories covering the event by The Pitt News.

“When you visit the archive, you can read all the communication that the students had with the administration, you can see the letters that the administration exchanged with different departments and the way they dealt with the whole situation,” Reis said.

The secondary focus of the archive was the institution and legacy of the Kuntu Repertory Theatre. Though the theater company performed all over Pittsburgh, the primary location was the Stephen Foster Memorial Theater, located on Pitt’s campus.

Courtney Colligan, a Ph.D. candidate in Theater and Performance Studies, said she got involved in the project after Walker reached out to her and Megan Massanelli, an Archives & Special Collections engagement and outreach librarian. While the collection contains posters, programs and memorabilia, it was Colligan’s work with the poems that drew her in. 

“From Nikki Giovanni’s ‘Dreams’ and ‘Mercy’ to Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’ and ‘The Mothering Blackness,’ to Langston Hughes ‘I, Too’ and ‘Who But the Lord,’ were some of the pieces inside that served as a collage for performances,” Colligan said. “Poetry played a vital role in Kuntu’s work.”

According to Colligan, this project has been deeply collaborative, and has potential for future growth, as scholars and individuals continue to examine the transformatory work of the Kuntu Repertory Theater.

“Working with this collection has been incredible,” Colligan said. “This collection gushes Black joy, Black love and Black dreams and shows how the theater uses the stage as a space to explore both the past and the present and uplift artists of all genres.”

According to the Black Built Pitt archive, Kuntu was a stimulating intellectual environment for Black artists seeking cultural reflections and social change, created in 1974 by the former Department of Black Community Education Research and Development at Pitt, later known as the Department of Africana Studies. Colligan said Kuntu emphasizes the importance of performance arts in creating change.

“Kuntu beautifully and hauntingly celebrated Blackness and directly confronted the deep-rooted white supremacy of this country through performance,” Colligan said. “Though documentation can prove challenging, the power of performance lies in its embeddedness with cultural memory.”

Until the theater disbanded in 2013, it was home to students, faculty, staff and other creative individuals in the local community. Specifically, the archive focuses on Vernell Lillie and Rob Penny, two formative creators of the theater, and the various productions staged at the theater.

Michele Reid-Vazquez created the Afrolatinidad Studies Initiative through the use of a Pitt Seed grant. According to the Black Built Pitt archive, the aim for this project is to highlight scholarly exchange and public engagement in the fields of Afro-Latin and Afro-Latinx Studies.

“The Afrolatinidad Studies Initiative did not exist before 2018, and it’s creating a space for those who identify as Afro-Latinx, a place to celebrate who they are, to educate others and come together,” Walker said.

According to Walker, Black Built Pitt highlighted the initiative in order to more fully encompass the Black experience.

“It was important for us to think about the African diaspora, and not just look at the amplification of Black voices and Black lives from an American perspective,” Walker said.

In tandem with various Pitt units, faculty and students, and also national and international scholars and organizations, the ASI aims to address struggles surrounding race and gender relations, migration, adaptation and socio-cultural expressions in the Afro-Latinx community. In this specific area of the archive, there are links to Pitt webinars, a podcast series, internships, information for the Afrolatinidad Studies consortium and a docuseries.

Walker said while the archive is a look back to the past, it is an important part of creating a brighter future.

“History is happening and being made right now,” Walker said. “We felt it was important to showcase the historical things that are happening in this present moment.”